Sales of official lottery products in mainland China in the first three months of 2019 stood at nearly CNY106.37 billion (US$15.83 billion), up by 2.1 percent compared to the prior-year period, according to data released by the Chinese Ministry of Finance on Tuesday.
Sales of welfare lottery tickets totalled approximately CNY49.06 billon in the first quarter of the year, a decrease of 6.1 percent compared to the same period last year. Sports lottery sales increased by 10.3 percent year-on-year to slightly below CNY57.26 billion.
The official data also showed that during the three months to March 31 sales went up in 14 of 31 provinces and municipalities of mainland China authorised to sell lottery tickets.
Guangdong – the mainland China province next door to Macau – continued to be the leading mainland lottery market. Guangdong’s lottery ticket sales in the first quarter of 2019 stood at nearly CNY9.77 billion, down 4.3 percent from a year earlier.
For the month of March, sales of lottery tickets went down by 13.0 percent year-on-year, to CNY34.95 billion. Welfare lottery sales reached approximately CNY16.55 billion last month, a decline of 16.4 percent year-on-year. Sports lottery sales for the month amounted to CNY18.40 billion, a decrease of 9.7 percent.
